


Never Coming Home

by EdgarAllenPoet



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Matt POV, Matt makes it home, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 23:50:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11702424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdgarAllenPoet/pseuds/EdgarAllenPoet
Summary: "Matt had to go home without her, had to face his mother without her, tell her he’d let her die in his arms."





	Never Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Based of the song "Ghost of You" by My Chemical Romance.

_ ‘The pain let’s me know I’m still alive.’ _

 

Matt hated that phrase.  He’d heard it back in high school, back when everyone had way too many ideas and no idea what to do with them all.  He’d heard it again in movies, and he’d thought it was dumb.  Shiro said it jokingly at the Garrison, lifting everyone’s spirits after morning PT, and that was probably the only time Matt didn’t mind it. 

 

He’d forgotten about it, for the most part.  It hadn’t been a thing he thought about. 

 

There were a lot of things he hadn’t thought about in space.  There hadn’t been time (a younger, simpler Matt would have used that opportunity to make a joke about space time, but current Matt couldn’t piece the words together properly, couldn’t find it in him to laugh, didn’t remember the shape of a smile). 

 

His mother had smiled.  She’d smiled, and she’d sobbed, and she’d clutched onto him hard enough to bruise when he turned up on her doorstep.   _ Her  _ doorstep.  Not his.  Not anymore.  She’d laughed hysterically, voice wet with anguish, and she’d held on and refused to let go. 

 

She’d asked about Dad.  She’d asked about  _ Katie _ . 

 

And now Matt was ignoring her, shutting himself out in the garage and going to town on the punching bag they had hung there.  He and Katie had played with it when they were little.  Their father had hit it when he was a younger man.  Now they were both gone, but that hadn’t stopped Matt from brushing off the cobwebs and letting his fists fly. 

 

He wasn’t playing.  This wasn’t fun.  Not anymore. 

 

Earth was too small.  Earth was too small and too cramped, and the house felt suffocating and the sky felt too close and Matt hated how he could look in any direction and the horizon was hidden by trees and houses and clutter. 

 

He’d spent weeks in a cell half the size of his Garrison dorm room, unable to see more than six feet in any direction, which was good for his near-sightedness but bad for his psyche. 

 

He’d spent longer than that at a work camp, and once the resistance picked him up he spent even more time free floating.  Months,  _ months _ , of open space, as far as the eye could see and even beyond that.  There was nothing out there, but there was everything to do.  It was overwhelming and exhilarating and it gave him a reason to be alive.

 

Earth… wasn’t like that.  Not anymore. 

 

He had no drive, no motivation.  He didn’t have anything.  He had his mother, but she was broken herself, and she didn’t understand.  She couldn’t.  Matt couldn’t even try to help her to. 

 

He was horrible.  He knew that.  His bad days were abundant, and he spent more time in bed than out of it.  He rarely had a nice thing to say, hell, he rarely had anything to say at all.  He was supposed to be seeing a shrink, but he fought it tooth and nail. 

 

He’d been awake for three days straight now, and after trembling like an earthquake and vomiting bile for an hour, his knees had started to ache against the tile bathroom floor, the porcelain everything cold and a harsh reminder of captivity, he’d given up on sleep that night and found himself in the garage at three in the morning. 

 

He was aching already, his exhausted muscles screaming at the work he was putting them through, already weak from far too many hours awake.  That didn’t stop him.  He gritted his teeth and threw himself at the punching bag, punch after merciless punch, waiting for some of the tension to bleed out of him.  It grew. 

 

His arms were bigger than they used to be.  His stomach toned, his legs strong and fast, his eyes always hyper aware and his hearing like a God damned owl.  He was stronger, much stronger, than he used to be, then he ever wanted to be.  

 

Shiro had been the same.  The few days they’d spent together, when Shiro had been lost and the two of them had gotten separated, were ripe in Matt’s memory.  Shiro was big, strong, and far sadder than the boy he’d left behind in the gladiator ring.  

 

He’d thought Shiro was dead that night.  He’d been sure of it.  Working on his busted leg had been hard.  Grappling with that sacrifice had been harder. He’d cried himself to sleep back then, back when he didn’t know better, back when he’d been weak and scared.  He’d been young, so young.  The both of them had. 

 

Fresh out of the Garrison, boasting shiny new officer statuses and invincible attitudes.  They’d been boys back on Kerberos.

 

The man Matt had found so many months later, the one he’d been stranded with in the vacuum of space for not nearly enough time…  Matt had barely even recognized him.  Matt barely even recognized himself. 

 

His hand was bleeding, middle two knuckles on his right fist busted open.  He didn’t stop.  He hated the phrase, but it played over and over in the back of his head like a sick man’s mantra:  _ “The pain let’s me know I’m still alive.” _

 

He shouldn’t have been.  He had no reason to be.  He wasn’t a fighter; he was a lucky idiot.  Matt had learned to fight from necessity, the same as Shiro had, but he hadn’t been naturally gifted.  Shiro was naturally gifted at everything.  He could have done so many great things. 

 

Instead he got himself killed.  The bastard. 

 

Matt choked, throat growing tight and eyes aching, but he didn’t cry anymore.  He wasn’t sure he knew how.  He balled his fists tighter and let them fly.  His shoulders felt like cracking. 

 

Shiro, shoving him back into the pod and pressing launch.  Shiro promising, “I have to save you.  I’ll find you again.”  Shiro throwing himself into a fight while Matt rocketed away, unable to help him.  He’d sent Matt away with the communicator they’d been working on building.  One more day and Matt could have saved both of them. 

 

He’d been close enough in his pod to see Shiro get shot.  Close enough to see him hit the ground and not get up.  He stared with empty lungs until the Galra base was just a speck through the heavy glass of the pod, until there was nothing to see, but the image was still burned into his eyes.  He couldn’t breathe.  He couldn’t remember how. 

 

His lungs were filled with fire as he gasped and wheezed for air, fighting past the sweat pouring down his face, rolling down his back and neck, dripping onto the floor.  Shiro was dead.  Shiro was gone.  He’d been so talented, so  _ good _ .  He’d been a leader and an overachiever and he’d tried so hard at everything.  Shiro was supposed to be here. 

 

Shiro was so much like Katie. 

 

They’d found him.  Just like Shiro said they would, they found him just a little too late.  The planet he eventually crashed into was a desert made of glass and an atmosphere full of steam.  His pod had been mangled, the plating cracked and letting noxious fumes swirl inside.  

 

Katie had found him first.  

 

They were fresh out of a battle, and her lion was damaged badly.  When he’d seen it shudder to the ground, he was sure he was meeting God.  

 

Katie… fuck.  Katie hadn’t cried when she’d seen him.  The little sister he knew would have cried like their mother, but while her eyes held heartbreak and her lip trembled, she was steady at work and her focus didn’t falter. 

 

“I got you,” she’d yelled.  “Matt, I’m here, I’ve got you.  I’m going to get you out of there.  I’ll get you home.” 

 

He’d tried to speak, choked, sputtered and coughed out blood.  The air was awful.  He’d run out of oxygen a while ago.  

 

Her breath hitched at that, when she saw the blood.  He remembered watching her freeze, eyes growing wide.  She looked oh so young in that moment, finally looked her age.  She was taller.  Her face was hardened.  This wasn’t the little girl he’d hugged goodbye at the Garrison.  This was someone else entirely, with just glimpses peeking through.  Just like Shiro.

 

Just like him. 

 

“Go,” he’d tried to rasp.  “I’m fine.” 

 

She didn’t listen to him, never had, and as she wedged a broken metal beam into the busted door frame and threw all her weight into it, levering with far more strength than she should have been capable of, Matt had been sure he was going to die. 

 

He wished he had. 

 

“No!” he screamed, rasped, coughed, as she tore her helmet from her head and slammed it onto him.  “Katie, no!” 

 

He wasn’t strong enough to carry them both into the lion, not with his gimpy leg and his decaying lungs and his malnourished body.  She’d clung to him, holding tight like a boa constrictor until her body shuddered with coughs and her muscles started losing strength.  He’d spent everything he had in him to get them both into the lion ship, fighting with every ounce of will he had remaining. 

 

It hadn’t been enough.

 

He watched his baby sister die. 

 

The lion hadn’t opened up after that, its own eyes losing their glow as Katie’s did, both becoming unresponsive and leaving Matt entirely alone.  He’d held her, then, tighter than ever.  He’d considered taking off the helmet, considered joining her.  

 

His baby sister out in space, fighting a war for the sake of the universe when she wasn’t even old enough to fight back on Earth.  She’d come out there to find him, to find him and his father, Shiro had told him.  If it wasn’t for him, she’d be safe.  She’d be alive. 

 

Matt had to go home without her, had to face his mother without her, tell her he’d let her die in his arms. 

 

The rest of Voltron (or what remained) showed up not long after that.  Matt didn’t like to think about what came next, but he forced himself to remember as he kept at the bag, now smeared with his blood.  

 

Keith screaming, furious, throwing him against a wall and threatening his life.  Lance holding him back, tears pouring down his face and eyes hardening.  He’d looked torn, like he was trying not to aim all his hatred at Matt, like he couldn’t help it.  Allura’s snarl as she questioned him.  Coran’s gentle treatment as he took Katie out of his arms and carried her away.  Hunk collapsing into an absolute breakdown.

 

_ “We’re going to Earth _ ,” Allura’s voice said in his memory. 

 

Lance’s joined her,  _ “We’re going home. _ ” 

 

Katie had said,  _ “I’ll get you home _ ,” but she was dead.  She was  _ gone _ .  Matt was home without her, and he hated himself.  She shouldn’t have died.  She was too good.  He wasn’t fucking worth it. 

 

He cried.  Tears joined the sheen of sweat drenching Matt’s face as he crumbled to his knees.  They hit the pavement hard, but he’d learned a long time ago not to cry out.  He didn’t even wince. 

 

_ “The pain let’s me know I’m still alive. _ ” 

 

He didn’t want to be alive.  He didn’t  _ deserve _ to be alive. 

 

Takashi.  Katie.  His  _ dad _ .  They’d all died.  They’d all given their lives to get him here, and for what?  Nothing. 

 

Exactly what he was. 

 

He couldn’t even kill himself, not after that.  Shiro had believed firmly in honor.  Matt couldn’t dishonor his memory like that, couldn’t throw away his sacrifice by joining them, no matter how badly he wanted to. 

 

Dead without even a body to bury.  Gone, lost in the vacuum of space.  His dad on an alien planet somewhere.  

 

Matt made a mistake in the work camp they were stationed at.  He wasn’t strong enough, not without food, to do the heavy lifting they required.  He stumbled, dropped the crystal slab he’d been holding.  It shattered.  

His father had shoved his own into Matt’s hands, propelled him back into line with the others.  He’d said, “Go.  Be strong.  You’ll do great things.” 

 

The Galra hadn’t even hesitated before planting their gun in the side of his father’s head. 

 

He’d cried that time.  He hadn’t been able to stop himself. 

 

Matt gasped for air in the present, lungs not what they used to be, not anymore.  He had vivid memories of spitting out blood, of Katie coughing and wheezing and splattering the sand with red while he dragged them towards the ship.  His leg was useless then, and it was useless now.  Shiro’s blade had gone into the bone all that time ago.  Months and months and it had never healed right.  He’d nearly died from a blood infection. 

 

The Galra had saved him.  He wished they hadn’t. 

 

There was blood everywhere.  On the bag, on the floor, on his hands and his shirt and dripping onto his pants.  He cradled his hands against his chest and curled down against his legs, kneeling on the floor.  Tuck in small and it’s harder for them to hurt you.  Look weak and they’ll leave you alone. 

 

That’s what Matt was- weak.  After everything, after everyone who had died to keep him alive, and now his mother gave up everything to care for him.  She put all of her energy into keeping him alive, into looking after him.  He couldn’t even give her the thanks of a conversation.  He couldn’t remember how to have one, couldn’t remember how to function. 

 

He was home, he should be better.  That had always been their goal.  Get back to Earth.  Survive. 

 

Well, he’d made it.  He shouldn’t have.  Not without them. 

 

He was supposed to watch Katie grow up.  He and Shiro were supposed to grow old together.  His parents were supposed to retire and have grandchildren.  So many things that were never going to come true.  So many things space had taken away from him. 

 

And, ha!  He’d gone there willingly.  He’d yearned for it. 

 

He’d been stupid when he was younger, when he was a kid.  He saw old pictures his mother had around the house.  He didn’t even know who that was anymore. 

 

He couldn’t breathe.  Not now, not then.  He’d screamed his lungs out every time.  For his father, for Shiro, for Katie.  He screamed until his throat cracked, until there was nothing left in him.  He’d screamed and they died, at the end of the universe, at the top of his lungs. 

 

_ “How did you get free?”  _ he’d demanded of Takashi, holding onto him like his life depended on it, burying his face in his friend’s chest, no longer shy.  Not the same person anymore.  Shiro had clung back. 

 

“ _ I’ll tell you when we get back, _ ” had been his answer. 

 

Matt hadn’t had it in him to ask the others, not when he knew they blamed him for taking away their friend and leader.  Not when Matt blamed himself. 

 

He’d stood at the precipice forever, searching for the strength to return to his mother empty handed.  Katie couldn’t come home.  She would never come home.  Could Matt after that?   _ Should  _ he? 

 

_ “The pain lets me know I’m still alive.”  _

 

Matt didn’t need busted knuckles to know that.  He didn’t need an aching leg or burning lungs or eyes that were too sensitive to the light.  He had enough pain to remember, a deep gut ache that robbed him of every capacity to function.  He knew he was still alive.  How could he forget?  When all of them had died to get him here.


End file.
